Chuck Greenberg Interview

On Wednesday August 25th, I interviewed Rangers Managing Partner and CEO Chuck Greenberg in his office at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. I would like to thank Chuck for doing this interview with me. It was extremely nice of him to do this for me, and I really appreciate it.

As the interview started I noticed a book on Chuck’s desk about Target Field (the Twins’ new ballpark).

Me: I just went to Target Field this summer.

Chuck: Did you? That’s where the owners’ meetings were where we were approved, so I didn’t see a game. I haven’t gone on a road trip yet but I’m going to catch the last two games of the Kansas City series and then go on with the team to Minnesota.

Me: It’s a great ballpark.

Chuck: Yeah, it’s really nice. It’s interesting how the engineering as evolved. It’s the same architect that did PNC Park in Pittsburgh, which I’m pretty familiar with, but to see how the engineering has evolved and how they’re able to get the seats right on top of the field. It’s steeper but it just gets you so much closer to the action. It’s really well done.

Me: It is and you need to see Target Plaza outside the park. That’s awesome.

Chuck: Yeah, I will, I’ll definitely do that. I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to everything.

Me: What made you interested in owning a baseball team and when did you become interested?

Chuck: I always loved baseball growing up. I loved following it, playing it, reading about it. I read about it all the time. I taught myself to read by reading about baseball. When I was on the school bus, I’d be reading about baseball. When I’d be walking down the aisle going off of the school bus, I’d be reading about baseball. Just all the time. My uncle and I would have these crazy baseball trivia quizzes. He first became a fan in 1948 so there was a time where my knowledge of baseball ran deepest in the 40’s and 50’s because it was the time he was most knowledgeable about. So I always loved the game and then played it growing up and in the first couple of years of college. And then when my sons were born, one of the first pictures of my oldest, he’s only a couple of hours old and he has a baseball in his hand. I managed all of my kids’ teams. When my oldest could barely talk, he knew the last names of the Pirates’ starting lineup. That’s how big a part of our household it was.

Me: I was the same way.

Chuck: Yeah? I believe it. Even your email address (grantlovesbaseball), it makes me smile every time because I can relate. So baseball just ran deep throughout every facet of my life. And then my middle son began playing on a team in 2001 and our first tournament we went to Reading, Pennsylvania, which has a great minor league team, the Reading Phillies. It was a really good weekend. His name’s Jack. He had 10 straight hits and everyone started calling him Jack-o-Matic, which was pretty good. I went to my first minor league baseball game. It was Reading versus Akron. I was sitting there and I said ‘This is great. This is so much fun. This looks like a pretty decent business too.’ And then lo and behold about two months later, the two fellows who owned the Altoona franchise in the same league called me. They were having a dispute with one another. They sued each other and they decided the only way to settle their dispute was to sell. And they knew about the work I had done in the sports industry so they were familiar with my name. And they said, ‘Hey, we thought maybe you’d be interested in buying the franchise.’ And I said, ‘What a great idea’ because I’d just been in Reading a couple of months earlier. (The team) was a hundred miles from my house so I said ‘great’. So that was my first opportunity and I ended up hiring the fellow who’d been the number two person in Reading a couple of years earlier and he was my right-hand guy as we built it up.

Altoona was just a tremendous experience. Minor league baseball is a small fraternity and if you do a good job and you have some success, when you go to the winter meetings, everyone calls out your name and wants you to come over to see if you’ll buy their franchise. So the athletic director at Penn State contacted me one day. They’d been trying to build a new baseball facility for a long long time and hadn’t been able to get it off the ground. He said, ‘I see what you’re doing in Altoona and you might be the kind of guy who can get this done.’ I thought, ‘Well, that’s interesting,’ and we studied the market and we thought it was a good possibility for a short season team, not a full season team. And so eventually we put a deal together to get a ballpark built and they allowed me to oversee the design of it, so we hired the design and construction firm and we ended up designing the first LEED-certified baseball park anywhere, which is an environmental certification. Now they all want to be that. We were actually the first one in the country to do that. So we bought a team in New Jersey, moved it there and also bought the team in Myrtle Beach.

So 2006 was a busy year. We opened this new ballpark, bought Myrtle Beach, and at the end of the 2006 season, Altoona was named the best franchise in all of minor league baseball, which was a culmination of a period of three years when we won all three of the major awards you can win in minor league baseball. No franchise had ever won them over such a short period of time or at such a young age. At our peak in Altoona, our attendance was about nine times the population of Altoona, which would be like the Rangers drawing 50 million people a year. It was crazy. So we had a great run in Altoona, sold Altoona at the end of 2008, still have Myrtle Beach and State College, and then in early 2009, I got a phone call from someone who said, ‘Hey, I think the Rangers may be available and would you be interested in looking at it with me?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ So I came down and looked at it and I thought this was just an unbelievable opportunity because, even though the team wasn’t playing well and had not been good in a while, you could see it was a good young team. I was very familiar, because of my activities in minor league baseball, with the team’s minor league system. I knew that it was loaded. And even though the support that the team had had did not translate into strong attendance, knowing how sports-crazed the region is and comparing that with how unsuccessful the Rangers had been on the field through most of their history, I thought this was the perfect opportunity. Because you have a community that loves its sports, that hasn’t had the chance to fall in love with the Rangers for a long time, but where good things were not too far in the distance.

And if we could have the success of the team coupled with the real fan friendly approach that we always used in the minor leagues, we could really catch lightning in a bottle and this could be one of those franchises where you look back and say ‘How could it not have always been this way?’ Like no one remembers with the Red Sox that ten years ago you could get a ticket whenever you wanted to. The Angels, even after they won the World Series, drew 2.3 million. And then new ownership came in, changed the way they did things, and connected with the community. And all of the sudden now there’s Red Sox Nation and you see the Angels ‘A’ everywhere. It wasn’t like that relatively recently. So I thought that, here in the community that’s the largest market in the whole country that only has one major league baseball team, when you combine all of those other factors, there was a chance for some really special things here. So I fell in love with the possibilities almost immediately. And then went through quite an interesting process for 15 and a half months. But I always believed that it was worth it. And after having been here when the team was struggling on the field and when no one was going to games, to let someone come in in the bottom of the ninth and take this thing, that just wasn’t going to happen. Myself and Nolan are just too competitive for that. I wish it would have been easier but there was no way it was going to end otherwise.

(Laughs) Was that a short answer or a long answer?

Me: So that’s interesting that that’s how you moved the Cardinals to State College.

Chuck: Yeah, what happened is that the team that we bought had to have a lease agreement that allowed it to relocate. So there were only a couple of options in the league and one of them was the New Jersey Cardinals and it so happened that the owner of that franchise I knew well because he had owned a team in the Eastern League that Altoona was in, so we had a relationship. Like I said, it’s kind of a small fraternity. And so I mentioned it to him and he said, ‘Well actually I was thinking about selling my franchise and the lease allows you to relocate.’ We never operated it in New Jersey. We bought it right around the end of the calendar year 2005 and we relocated it by opening day 2006.

Me: Why did you decide to sell the Curve in 2008?

Chuck: You know, I loved the Curve and the people there. It was a great experience. I’ve said many times that without all of the things that we were able to do and the relationships we built in Altoona, I wouldn’t be here. All of the successes that we had and the way that we did things in Altoona are a huge part of the storyline that ultimately gave me the opportunity to be here. We’d done it for seven years there and had overachieved to epic proportions. I mean, to draw close to 400,000 fans with a population of 46,000 is not normal. And it was really, really hard work. They’re tremendous passionate baseball fans but there just weren’t a lot of people. Even when we’d market over a 60 mile radius, we had to have tremendous success in reaching people to have attendance like that. It got to where you’d start to think about people who used to go to 60 games a year and now they only go to 40 games a year. Does that make them a bad fan? No, they’re still pretty special. So it was going to become harder and harder to continue to grow. Our folks there had worked really, really hard and they were starting to get a little bit burned out and were looking for a new challenge, and I felt a tremendous amount of loyalty for them. So they wanted to try to do some different things and this was a way to do it. So when I sold Altoona, some of the people migrated to State College and some of them joined me at a new consulting company that I formed that does consulting work for other franchises. It was just the right timing.

Plus one of the two original owners of the Curve was interested in buying it back. So it was really a nice situation because he had never really wanted to sell. It was because he had this dispute with his partner. So it was a nice story and a good example about why it’s always so important to treat people well. It’s just the way I was raised. But here we were, I had bought the franchise from this gentleman, we had had this great success with it, and who’d I sell it to? Him. We got along great. It would have been easy for me to want to disassociate him from the franchise or him to resent whatever success we were having. It was the opposite. It was great. I was able to hand it back over to him. It was something that he and his family had originally dreamed up and it’s a nice story that they now get to go on and have the future that they originally thought they were going to have.

Me: It’s pretty cool that he got it back.

Chuck: Yeah, definitely.

Me: What sports did you play growing up and which were you best at?

Chuck: I played baseball, football, and basketball. They were kind of the three standard sports when I was growing up. Messed around a tiny little bit with hockey. I loved hockey but there weren’t very many places to skate.

Me: I still don’t know how to skate.

Chuck: Well, as my sons, who were all very good hockey players, would tell you, I’m a lousy skater. So I followed all of the sports avidly but those were the three that I played. Baseball was my best sport. I was a left-handed pitcher and first baseman. I threw hard but I didn’t know where. I had a good glove but I didn’t have much of a stick, which as a baseball player makes you a really good candidate to go to law school. So I loved playing, I really did, but I knew a couple of years into college that I kind of hit the ceiling. I had the chance to do a government internship program my junior year, which was a great experience and was going to open a lot of doors, so I did that.

Me: Yeah, I’m the exact opposite as a pitcher. I’m a righty, I don’t throw too hard, but I have good control.

Chuck: Well, as long as you don’t throw it down the middle, that can work really well. You know what the funny thing is though? Then when I coached my boys, I would throw BP for eight hours a day and I could put it exactly where everybody wanted me to. I thought, ‘If I could have had this kind of control when I was growing up…’ Of course, I wasn’t trying to throw hard. Big difference.

Me: So who was your favorite player and why?

Chuck: Growing up?

Me: Yes.

Chuck: Oh, it was Clemente. I loved Roberto Clemente. He played so hard. He’d hit a two-hopper back to the pitcher and he’d be sprinting full speed down the first base line. He had a grace and an elegance in the way he played that was like nobody else. Plus being Pittsburgh, we all were kind of sensitive about people looking down their nose a little bit at Pittsburgh. And Roberto was a guy who never really got his due on the national stage for a long, long time. In the ’71 World Series, he put on one of the most dominant World Series performances ever. And all of the sudden the whole country discovered him and he was a superstar. And there was great pride that we took that our guy had finally been discovered. And then the way he lived his life and the tragic circumstances of his death really speak to his integrity and the kind of person and player he was. He was really special to me.

Me: Yeah, he was a great guy. So, did you want to be involved in sports as a kid and, if so, in what capacity?

Chuck: I would have loved to keep playing it for a long time but at some point for most of us, reality kicks in and it’s time for plan B. So I always thought that the dream job would be to run the Pirates. I mean, the hometown team and the one you grew up with, wouldn’t that be great. Or at least to find a way to be involved in sports in some capacity. But I had absolutely no game plan on how to do it. I mean I’ve spoken many, many times to students, at college or law school, and they all want to know what my plan was. Well, I didn’t really have a plan. I had a desire but I did not have a plan. One of my all-time favorite quotes is that luck is where preparation meets opportunity. I don’t know where I read that but I read it somewhere a long time ago and I really believe in that because it’s a more eloquent way of saying you can make your own luck.

Because I always loved sports, I wanted to be a part of it. I didn’t know how, but I would read like crazy about the business of sports, about the industry and the people in it and the issues of the day. And then in 1987, I got introduced to Mario Lemieux early in his hockey career. He had an issue - he was building his first home - and I was friends with his new agents. And I said. ‘Hey, I might be able to help with that.’ So they introduced me to him and I fixed the problem. We hit it off personally and professionally. I was never his agent but I did his legal work. And from knowing him, I started to meet a lot of other people in the industry. And because I had read so much about it, I could talk a pretty decent game. So I’d meet up with other owners or players or agents, people around the game, and from that I was able to fit in and people started entrusting me with other opportunities. So before you know it, I’m doing work for teams and owners and learning more all the time.

So, on the one hand it was really lucky that I met Mario, because almost everything I’ve done in my career, I can trace back without too many degrees of separation to just having the good fortune of being introduced to him in 1987. But on the other hand, without ever knowing if an opportunity would come, where it would come from, or how it would come, in a way, I sort of prepared for it because of all these things I would read about the industry. So luck is where preparation meets opportunity. Without realizing it, I was preparing. Opportunity came my way when I met him and I look back and say, “Wow, I was really lucky I met Mario’.

Me: Yeah, I’m the same way. I want to play baseball but if I can’t to that, I want to do something with sports. Journalism, hopefully.

Chuck: I believe that.

Me: How big a role did you play in getting Mario Lemieux ownership of the Penguins?

Chuck: Pretty significant role. It was a small group of us who, along with Mario, worked at this every day for 11 months. I was sure when it was over, it would be the craziest deal and set of circumstances I’d ever have to deal with, but it now holds the silver medal for that one. But I was very involved in all that. I helped him put the ownership group together. I did the projections and the business plan. I renegotiated all of the major deals the franchise was a party to. I helped hire the management team. It was a lot because we didn’t have the capital to go out and hire the kind of expert team of advisors that for example I did with the Rangers acquisition. There were a few of us kind of winging it. So that was an unbelievable experience which prepared me very well for a lot of things that have happened in the 11 or 12 years since then.

The key there was that I was just adamant that whatever decisions we made, we were either going to do it right or not do it at all. Sometimes you can’t settle for what you can get, you have to know what you can’t live without. So we had to drive a really hard bargain on a lot of things because the franchise was so messed up that if we had gone forward with anything even resembling the type of deals they had in a number of different areas, the franchise would have been doomed to just fall back into bankruptcy again. There were a lot of instances where I had to tell someone, ‘Look, I understand you were doing it one way and now it has to be a completely different way. And maybe that doesn’t make sense for you and it’s not my place to tell you what does or doesn’t make sense to you. But I do have to be honest with you and tell you if you can’t do it this way, we’re not going forward.’ So ultimately we got it done and it was a great experience. It helped me quite a bit with what I just went through with the Rangers. But it was a pretty wild process on its own.

Me: And they’re a much better team now than they were then too.

Chuck: Well, you know they were actually pretty decent then. And then Mario came back and they were really good. And then when he retired again, the team went downhill in a hurry. And then came the lockout, the economic situation changed, and it gave franchises in smaller markets a little more of a chance. Then of course they won the lottery to get Sidney Crosby and they got Malkin and Fleury and all the guys. Now they were just ranked as the hottest brand in sports. So if we could emulate that, it wouldn’t be bad.

Me: No, it wouldn’t be bad at all. Now that you own the Rangers, do you think you’ll keep your minor league teams?

Chuck: Myrtle Beach and State College, yes, I do. We have a great management team there. We’re having a real strong year in both locations. I don’t have any plans to sell either one of them.

Me: How big is the city where Penn State is located?

Chuck: State College has about 45,000 full time residents. It also has about an equal number of students. On football Saturdays, it’s the third biggest city in the state of Pennsylvania. But we don’t play on football Saturdays. It’s a great example where we have to do a great job reaching out and touching the community and being a part of their lives. And we’ve succeeded with that. We’ve averaged about 3700-3800 per game this year, just under 4000. Again, in a smaller community in the summer, and with short season ball, that’s very good. We outdraw a number of markets that are significantly larger than ours. Our sponsorship revenue is really strong. I think if you ask anyone in the surrounding community what they think of the State College Spikes, they’ll say, ‘Those are great people who do wonderful things in the community.’ That’s how we like to be known.

Me: What are some things as far as fan experience you’ve implemented with your minor teams that have worked really well?

Chuck: The things we’ve done here (with the Rangers) so far, you could probably do a rap video called ‘Straight out of Altoona’ because we’ve had to scramble. For four and a half months, we couldn’t think of anything other than just trying to find a way to get the team. Now we’re really kind of going on the fly and doing the things you can do in a hurry late in the season. Already we’ve cut the price of hot dogs, soda, beer, parking, caps. We’ve added a cap exchange program where if you (turn in) the cap of another major league team, you get 20% off of a Rangers cap.

Monday night we started the blue light specials, which we’re going to do every game. It’s for one inning. We announce a discount on a particular food item and a discount on a particular merchandise item. Monday night it was $5 off any authentic cap and it was also a discount on peanuts and soda. Last night for one inning, it was dollar hot dogs. We sold almost 4000 hot dogs in one inning, on a night where the attendance was 20,000. Tonight’s dollar dog night so the hot dogs are already only a dollar, but there’ll be a blue light special tonight. There’s a big siren and everything start flashing blue and Chuck Morgan announces what the nightly blue light special is. And people will talk about it. Last night on the Ticket on the way home, people were calling and they were talking about the dollar dog they got at the blue light special. And that’s what it’s all about. If you can create more value for your fans, in a way that gets everybody talking, then our fans market us for us. And that’s the way to do it. So now today when I was walking around, our game day staff was excited. They said, ‘Did you see all the people who were lining up for hot dogs last night? What’s the blue light special tonight?’ I said ‘Well, buckle up, it’s going to be a big one tonight.’ (Note: the blue light special that night ended up being discounted beer.) So it just gets people talking. It adds energy to the staff too because it’s fun for them to see. That’s one thing that we want to do.

We want to mix it up. We’ve added a number of things already with the in-game experience. Now when we score a run, we have the Six Shooters running around with Texas state flags. We think that’s a great element. We changed a little bit about the in-game presentation so that, the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings, it’s all about ratcheting up the intensity level, for the focus to be on the field. So you won’t see us doing a blue light special in the 6th because that would be effective for the 7th. The 7th, 8th and 9th innings, we want everyone in the seating bowl focusing on what’s going on and making this as hostile a place for opposing teams to play as good taste will allow.

Sunday we ran a full page ad in every major newspaper within a four hour drive of the ballpark in the form of a letter from myself and Nolan, emphasizing that we understand that this franchise belongs to the fans and that we want to serve them and that we need their ideas and suggestions. There were really two messages there. One is what the letter actually says. But the other is the geographic scope of where we placed it. We really wanted to make the point that, for all those Rangers fans who may have become disaffected over the years who live within about a four hour drive of the ballpark, we want you back. It’s time to come home again to the ballpark. Today, we named Katie Crawford, who’s a terrific member of our staff, the first Rangers Fan Ambassador. It will be her job, as fans have suggestions, they can call or email her. If they have a problem, they can call or email her, and her job is to make everybody happy. We’re going to create a comprehensive Fan Ambassador programs in the off-season but again we wanted to do this right away.

Me: I hadn’t heard of the blue light thing yet.

Chuck: You’ll see it tonight. Keep you eyes open. I think it’ll be the 5th inning tonight.

Me: Besides the new scoreboard, what are some things you have planned to enhance the Rangers Ballpark experience?

Chuck: We have an unlimited number of things in our bag of tricks. What’s great is that it keeps getting deeper, because everyone has ideas. I was kidding that we’re going to put out a CD this offseason called ‘Chuck Morgan Unleashed’. Because Chuck’s been waiting to be able to do all these things but now he’s really being encouraged to let it all hang out and try things. So you’ll see as far as the in-game presentation, we’ll be rolling out new things all the time. You’re going to see greatly expanded caravans because we’re going to go out and do things in all these communities to really be a part of their lives and do things for them and not just ask them to come to the ballpark. I want to improve the food and beverage experience. I think the food’s good but I’d like to see a more diversified menu. I’d like to see more specialty foods.

Me: Yeah, I saw the new Asian place downstairs.

Chuck: That’s an example of it and we’ve had a request for vegetarian food. I’d like to see more Tex-Mex food. I’d like to see more big grilled sandwiches. There’s a whole bunch of different thing we can do. We’re looking at how we can utilize different parts of the ballpark to do that, particularly in the seating bowl. One of the phrases that we use a lot is that it’s about the sight, sounds, and smells. Well, right now to get food you have to give up the sight of the game. We restored some of the sound. We put the speakers back on. I don’t know why they were turned off. We put the speakers back on so you can hear the play by play of the game as you’re walking through the concourse. We’re still experimenting with the decibel level. It still needs to be a little bit louder. We’re looking for ways we can bring the food experiences into the seating bowl, which was not the case before.

Me: I like the radio being back on. I also like the new graphics for the players.

Chuck: It’s definitely amped up. Much better.

Me: You said that the Rangers and the community need to feel like family. What are some ideas you have for making the fans feel closer to the team?

Chuck: I think we’re doing a number of them already. Cutting prices. Soliciting everyone’s ideas and suggestions. Being available to fix problems immediately. Working backwards from yes. Being more accessible. Every game, I’ve spent time just wandering around the ballpark for at least a few innings. I’m not doing it from an ego standpoint. I’m doing it because fans want to see that we’re just like them. And I am, in every way. So I make a point to watch the game from all different vantage points. It not only sends a good message but it’s really helpful to me because sitting in different places, fans give me their ideas and their thoughts, but I also get to experience the game from different places. I’ve gone to places and said, ‘The sound system needs to be tweaked here.’ Or ‘I can’t see this particular thing on the board.’ If you’re always in the same place every night, there’s just no way you can pick those kinds of things up. In multiple ways, it’s a wise thing to do.

Me: Yeah, we’ve found that the sound system needs to be tweaked.

Chuck: Or maybe start over with it.

Me: What’s your opinion on displaying Rangers history around the ballpark?

Chuck: Two things. One is I would like to see more about the history of the franchise. I’d also like us to create more history too. There are some really cool things I saw at the Penguins new arena last week where they’ve got interactive history and Hall of Fame displays that are really high-tech, where you can get a lot of content but display it in a non-traditional way that’s pretty efficient with space. And they had it sponsored, which is a nice combination. I would like to see more history. This is such a wonderful traditional park. You can feel a lot of the legacy of baseball here. There are things we can do to bring that out, not just by honoring the history of the team but things we can do with the signage packages throughout the park to clean it up and make it look more like it was originally intended to. I think over the years, the signage has kind of junked it up a little bit, not because there’s too much signage but because of the way the signage is done. There are just too many different colors and shapes and locations. I think there’s a way to maximize our revenue while still creating an aesthetic approach that’s more true to the original vision. You look at Fenway for example. They’ve done a great job. All the ads fit a certain theme or look. Everyone buys into it because that’s part of being at Fenway. I think when you’re in this ballpark, it’s such a wonderful traditional Texas-themed park. I think there are things we can do to bring that character out even more.

Me: I remember when they used to have bricks outside the ballpark that showed each year’s team, showing each player who was on the team that year, their stats, and any awards players on the team won. I thought that was really cool and they tore it up for some reason. There are still two years, ‘96 and ‘97 out there, but the rest are gone.

Chuck: One of the things that we’ve done in our parks, at Altoona and Myrtle Beach, where the franchises have been around long enough, is have opening day banners. We have banners throughout the concourses showing the starting lineup from every opening day.

Me: Yeah, I really like those.

Chuck: Yeah, you would have seen them in Myrtle Beach. We just added those last year or maybe the year before. That’s a subtle but effective way. First, it looks good. But it also shows a little bit about the history. When people think about making changes to a ballpark, they think about things that cost 50 million dollars. Most of the things you can do that improve the atmosphere, they hardly cost anything. It’s just a matter of working hard enough to identify what they are. And one of the ways to work hard to identify them is by asking you to identify them. That’s why getting ideas from other people is good. We have no pride. We just want to be the best we can be. And that’s why we want others to help us get there.

Me: I also like the board at Myrtle Beach that shows all the minor leaguers who played for the Pelicans and have made it to the majors.

Chuck: Yeah, the Road to the Show Wall. That was another thing we started in Altoona.

Me: Which dog do you like better - Dinger or Deuce? (Mascots for the Myrtle Beach Pelicans)

Chuck: Well, you know we lost Dinger. Dinger passed away. Dinger was a great dog. I really like Deuce but Dinger was an original and I’m a big dog guy. We have four dogs of our own and every time I saw dinger, I wanted to give him a hug. It’s nothing against Deuce but Dinger had a lot of character. I miss Dinger.

Me: I agree. I still remember playing fetch with him in the team store. And even though my dog’s name is Deuce, I still like Dinger better.

Chuck: Dinger was just one of those dogs you wanted to hug. Our first dog, who we lost to cancer, he was that way. He was Hank, named after Hank Greenberg, and people would see him and they’d just want to cross the street and hug him. Certain dogs have charisma and Dinger had charisma.

Me: So, I guess we’ll wrap it up. Thank you so much for doing this.

Chuck: You’re welcome. We’ll definitely do it again.

I would like to thank Chuck for giving me so much of his time and for giving such great answers to questions.

Come back next week for a pennant race analysis.

August Awards

This week I will give my August Awards for the Rangers, American League, and National League. I didn’t have a July Awards, so I am writing this month’s awards a week early to make it a kind of combination.

Rangers Awards:

MVP: Josh Hamilton, TEX (.356 AVG, 27 HR, 85 RBI): I have Josh as my AL MVP, so he will pretty obviously be my Rangers MVP. He has an amazing batting average, with outstanding power numbers.
Runner-up: Vladimir Guerrero, TEX (.298 AVG, 21 HR, 88 RBI)

Cy Young: CJ Wilson, TEX (12-5, 3.02 ERA, 128 K): CJ has an ERA just barely above 3.00, which is amazing, especially for a guy in his first full major league season as a starter. He also leads the team in wins on top of that incredible ERA.
Runner-up: Colby Lewis, TEX (9-10, 3.37 ERA, 154 K)

Rookie of the Year: Neftali Feliz, TEX (30 SV, 3.46 ERA, 53 K): Once again, like Josh, I have Neftali as my American League winner at this award, so he will definitely be the Rangers ROY. He has one of the highest save totals in the AL this year, and already has more than the Rookie of the Year last season.
Runner-up: Alexi Ogando, TEX (3-1, 1.27 ERA, 28 K)

AL Awards:

MVP: Josh Hamilton, TEX (.356 AVG, 27 HR, 85 RBI): Josh leads the majors in batting average by a healthy 16 points, and has great power numbers to go with it. He is 6th in the AL in home runs and 9th in RBIs, just good enough to let his average make him the MVP.
Runner-up: Miguel Cabrera, DET (.340 AVG, 31 HR, 101 RBI)

Cy Young: Clay Buchholz, BOS (14-5, 2.36 ERA, 89 K): Clay leads the American League in ERA at 2.36, has 14 wins, which is 5th in the AL, and he’s only lost 5 games this season.
Runner-up: Trevor Cahill, OAK (13-5, 2.54 ERA, 86 K)

Rookie of the Year: Neftali Feliz, TEX (30 SV, 3.46 ERA, 53 K): Last year, Andrew Bailey won Rookie of the Year over Elvis Andrus with 26 saves on a bad team, while Neftali Feliz already has 30 saves for a good team, and has been very, very good.
Runner-up: Austin Jackson, DET (.306 AVG, 2 HR, 28 RBI)

Manager of the Year: Cito Gaston, TOR (64-57, 4th place): Cito has taken a team that was supposed to battle the Orioles for last place in the division into a team 7 games over .500 battling the Red Sox for 3rd place in the best division in baseball.
Runner-up: Ron Washington, TEX (68-53, 1st place)

NL Awards:

MVP: Albert Pujols, STL (.316 AVG, 32 HR, 88 RBI): Albert is tied for 4th in the National League in batting average, is first in home runs, and is first in RBIs. The only other player that is in the top 5 of every category in the NL is Joey Votto.
Runner-up: Joey Votto, CIN (.320 AVG, 28 HR, 81 RBI)

Cy Young: Adam Wainwright, STL (17-7, 2.06 ERA, 165 K): Adam leads the majors in wins with 17, and leads the majors in ERA at 2.06, and is tied for 6th in the majors in strikeouts. That’s a Cy Young.
Runner-up: Roy Halladay, PHI (16-8, 2.16 ERA, 180 K, 200 IP)

Rookie of the Year: Jaime Garcia, STL (10-6, 2.58 ERA, 105 K): Jaime has had a great year for the Cardinals, with an ERA well under 3.00, better than any NL rookie starter, and also leads NL rookies in wins this year. That’s Rookie of the Year numbers.
Runner-up: Buster Posey, SF (.342 AVG, 9 HR, 46 RBI)

Manager of the Year: Bud Black, SD (73-48, 1st place): Bud has really done a great job with the Padres this year, and has supposedly one of the worst teams in baseball in first place, and going strong.
Runner-up: Dusty Baker, CIN (71-51, 1st place)

Come back next week for a new interview if everything goes well.

Minnesota-Toronto Trip Report

Last week, my dad and I took a baseball-centered trip to Toronto and Minneapolis. This was my first time out of the country, and my first to Minnesota. I hadn’t been to either the Blue Jays or the Twins ballpark, and with the Twins new ballpark, it was a perfect time to go. This trip got me up to having been to 25 current major league stadiums, and 31 major league stadiums in all. Following is the report on our trip.

Thursday, July 29th:

On Thursday, my dad and I flew to Toronto on my first international flight. It was a pretty long flight, but I passed it by mainly by watching Major League 2 with my dad. We spent the night at a Hampton Inn right by the airport. It was very convenient.

That night we went to the Hockey Hall of Fame. It is located in a mall and is fairly small, but it’s a neat place. One of the coolest things that they had in the Hall was a room in the very center dedicated to all the hockey legends. Some of the players that get inducted get inducted as Legends, and get their own little display case in this room. The only Star there was Brett Hull. They also have the Stanley Cup in one of the rooms, and I really liked how it had the names of all of the players from each Stanley Cup Champion on it. It was fun to look at the Stars roster from 1999. One thing that I found strange, though, is how the players that get inducted aren’t associated with a team. It was also somewhat frustrating how few Stars things they had. It seemed as if the Stars had about the least amount of representation in the place, although I’m sure the Coyotes and Thrashers had less. I also have to point out that I beat my dad 2-1 in triple overtime on one of those hockey tables that is kind of like foosball.

After we finished up at the Hall of Fame, we walked over to eat at Wayne Gretzky’s (no, this is not a hockey trip, it’s a baseball one). It was a very long walk, despite the fact that an employee told us it was walking distance. As an appetizer, we got poutine, which is french fries with cheese and gravy, and it was good, but somewhat disappointing since it sounded so amazing, and ended up only being good. We then split a pizza, and it was a very good pizza. We got pepperoni, bacon, and sausage, and I would get it again if we ever go back. The restaurant had a lot of Wayne Gretzky memorabilia, and I’m glad we ate there, even though the prices were ridiculous.

We drove back to the hotel when we were done eating, and after getting over my shock of them not having ESPN (which I still find crazy, ESPN should at least stretch to Canada), I watched the Yankees and Indians game. The Indians had to make a quick turn-around because they were the team that was playing the Blue Jays in the game we saw on Friday. But the TV situation turned out to be okay, despite the fact that there wasn’t any ESPN.

Friday, July 30th:

Early Friday morning, after eating the free Hampton breakfast (apparently Canadians eat baked beans for breakfast), my dad and I drove to St. Marys to see the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. St. Marys is a small little town, and is a pretty long drive from Toronto (about 2 hours). The Hall of Fame is in a small house in the middle of a neighborhood, but although the space is small, the place is crammed with info. The setting of it was very neat, and it had a cool feeling to it. The place was very interesting, and there’s a lot of Blue Jays and Expos stuff. The inductees have plaques in the hallway, and the most notable ones were Fergie Jenkins, Joe Carter, Gary Carter, and Roberto Alomar. To be inducted, you have to make a contribution to Canadian baseball, and the inductees are normally players who are either Canadian-born or played for the Blue Jays or Expos. On the field behind the house, they have three little league fields, two of them with seats from the old Exhibition Stadium (Blue Jays former ballpark). The displays were very updated; in one room they had Jason Bay gear from a game earlier this year. The employee there was very friendly, and I enjoyed talking with him.

On our way to our new hotel in Toronto, we stopped at the site of Exhibition Stadium, the old Blue Jays ballpark, and that was fun, because they had home plate and each of the three bases marked with plaques set in the ground. They were located in the parking lot of the Toronto FC soccer stadium.

We went and checked in to our new hotel, the Renaissance, which is connected to the Blue Jays ballpark. It was neat to be able to walk into our hotel and look out over the field. Our room was facing the opposite way, but there was a restaurant off of the hotel lobby that overlooked the field.

We just hung out in our ESPN-less hotel room for about half an hour before heading to the game. The stadium has no character, and there is nothing that really makes it special, but it’s a good place to watch a baseball game. The problem with it is that there is nothing else but the field, basically. We ate some ridiculously over priced chicken tenders with some tasteless fries, and my dad got an $8.00 Coke (yes, 8 dollars, he didn’t see the price). The roof was open, and the temperature was in the 60s (I miss that weather). Our seats were very good, because we had a great view of the CN Tower, and it has a cool light show at night, so it kept changing colors all over the place. I really enjoyed the game.

The Blue Jays won the game 8-1, with a combination of their amazing power and a good pitching performance by Shaun Marcum. The first Jays home run of the night was Fred Lewis’ 7th in the third inning, to put the Blue Jays up 1-0. But then in the 4th inning, the Indians pitcher Justin Masterson just flat out lost it. The Blue Jays scored 6 runs in the inning, capitalized by a Jose Bautista grand slam, his 31st home run of the year (wow, who would’ve thought?). The Jays scored another run in the sixth off of Masterson to make his line 5.1 innings and 8 earned runs. Shaun Marcum took a no-hitter into the fifth, when Austin Kearns, in his last game as an Indian, broke it up. Marcum allowed just one run in 7 innings, and struck out 10 Indians, before giving way to Casey Janssen and Shawn Camp, who both threw scoreless innings.

Saturday, July 31st:

We woke up very early Saturday morning to head to the airport. We were flying from Toronto to Chicago to Minneapolis. Our flight took off on time from Toronto, and landed on time, also. When we landed in Chicago, we were supposed to have a 3-hour layover, but we got lucky, and there was a flight to Minneapolis that had been delayed by 15 minutes, and that allowed us to get on that flight via stand-by, so we had about a half-an-hour layover. We arrived in Minneapolis early in the afternoon.

Once we landed, we went straight to the Mall of America (which is the biggest mall you’ll ever see), and played Moose Mountain mini-golf. It was an 18-hole course on the third floor, and is really, really neat. I beat my dad, and had a lot of fun, even though the people in front of us were the slowest putt-putters ever. The little girl would get a 10, and then re-do some putts, even though we were waiting right behind them. After I destroyed my dad at putt-putt, we went into the amusement park in the middle of the mall, formerly called Camp Snoopy, but then bought by Nickelodeon, and now called Nickelodeon Universe (I would’ve liked Camp Snoopy more). You pay per ride there, and we only did one ride, called GhostBlaster, which was fun. It was kind of like the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney World, but not quite as good, since it’s not Disney quality. Once again, I just completely obliterated my dad, so that made me 3-0 for the trip. Also, in the middle of the amusement park, they have a marker showing the location of home plate from Metropolitan Stadium, which is the Twins old ballpark, and against the wall they have the seat still hanging from where Harmon Killebrew hit a 520-foot home run, the longest in Twins history.

3:00 pm was check-in time, so we went over to our third hotel in three nights, a Doubletree within walking distance of Target Field. I always like staying at Doubletrees because they give you free cookies when you check in.

When the gates opened, we walked over to Target Field, which was extremely nice. The stadium was one of the best I’ve ever seen. The attention to detail there was amazing; it seemed like everything there had some different historical meaning. Outside the right field gate is Target Plaza, which is awesome. It has the complete rosters of every Twins team and every member of the Twins Hall of Fame on a fence. It has statues of Rod Carew, Harmon Killebrew, and Kirby Puckett, which were neat. One of my favorite parts of the plaza was the Gold Glove they had out there. They had a Gold Glove statue, with a plaque beside it that has every Gold Glove winner in Twins history, and it is 520 feet from home plate, the same distance as the longest home run in Twins history. They also have nine huge bat-shaped flowerpots, and one lights up for every inning, so if you’re driving by and 5 bats are lit up, you know that it’s the fifth inning. They had a lot of history, and I like that. The Rangers really don’t have any history at all outside their ballpark. Another great aspect of the ballpark is the big Minnie & Paul sign that they have out in center field that sparkles after a strike-out, and has them shake hands after a home run (unfortunately, we didn’t see any homers).

In the game, the Twins played very well. The pitching match-up was Felix Hernandez vs. Kevin Slowey, and Hernandez actually did not get the best of that match-up. Slowey was dealing, throwing 8 shut-out innings, and allowing only three hits all day. Hernandez threw six shut-out innings in innings 2-7, but that was after a 3-run first inning for the Twins. Delmon Young drove in two runs with a triple, and then the very next batter, Jim Thome, drove him home with an RBI double. The Twins scored a fourth run in the 8th on a Joe Mauer RBI double off of former Ranger Jamey Wright. The Twins beat the Mariners 4-0.

But we left the Twins game after the 5th inning to go see a St. Paul Saints game. The Saints are an independent league team. They play at Midway Stadium, which is very small and old, and doesn’t have enough parking, but they make it a fun place to watch a game, with very different entertainment. We got there in the top of the 4th inning, and left after 8. The fans there are very into the game and excited about it, despite the fact that there is a major league team 15 minutes away. The Saints won the game 5-2 over the Sioux Falls Fighting Pheasants.

Sunday, August 1st:

In the morning, my dad and I walked to the nearest tram station to go to the Metrodome, and on the way we saw a lot of the Joe Mauer statues they have around town. Each statue represents a different year in Twins history, and they are all in the shape of Joe Mauer made out of clippings and pictures and other things. It’s part of the celebration of the Twins’ 50th season.

When we got off the tram, we went around the Metrodome (now called Mall of America Field, which I think is too long of a name), and went to Dome Souvenirs, across the street from the Metrodome. Inside, they have a small, free museum, which is basically the owner’s collection of souvenirs. The owner used to the equipment manager for the Twins. It was a bit random, but still very cool, and I’m glad I went.

The Twins had a day game that day, and so we hopped back on the tram and went straight to Target Field, since there is a stop about 20 feet away from the ballpark. Once again, the Twins beat the Mariners 4-0, but this time it was Francisco Liriano that was dealing. He allowed only four base-runners, no runs, and struck out 11 in just 7 innings. Luke French of the Mariners started off the game great, with 5 shut-out innings, but then allowed 4 runs in the 6th inning, on a 3-run Jason Kubel double, and a Danny Valencia RBI double. Jon Rauch and Matt Guerrier both struck out two in their innings of work, so the Mariners struck out 15 times in all.

After the game, we headed back over to the Mall of America to do MagiQuest and more rides. MagiQuest is an interactive game that is very fun. The rides we did were a roller coaster that went all around the park, and that was fun, because it didn’t have any big drops or anything like that (I don’t like big roller coasters), and we did a log ride that looked like it had been unchanged by Nickelodeon, and I think that was the best ride there. You went around in a log, and it had a whole lot of robotic figures that moved and talked, or did something like that. I wonder how cool the place would have been before Nickelodeon changed everything, and made the whole look of it change from cool outdoorsy to colorful blankness. After we did those three things, we went back to the hotel, where I caught up on my ESPN-watching.

Monday, August 2nd:

On Monday, we had a flight out in the afternoon, but in the morning we did a tour of Target Field, which was very good.

We started out in Target Plaza, and then went in to the ballpark. It’s a small place, with just about 40,000 seats, with a very cool look to it. And we learned about yet another cool historical attention to detail when the tour guide told us that the flag pole was the same one that was used at the Twins old field, Metropolitan Stadium. It surprised me that it has no kids zone like most teams do, but I was also jealous of their jumbo-tron. It was very large and clear, like most teams have, but not the Rangers. The tour took us into the Town Ball Tavern, a restaurant inside the ballpark, in which we had eaten the day before (pretty good burgers, and different but good tasting chips. As Chris Bosh would say, “It’s different, I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s just different.”). Then they took us into the Legends Club (the club level), and I really enjoyed that, because there were a lot of different display cases in there about the Twins with their numbers retired. Kirby Puckett’s cases were awesome, because they had his whole collection, Gold Gloves and everything, since his family donated it to them after he passed away. They also took us into the Metropolitan Club, which is a restaurant for season ticket holders and honors the Metropolitan Stadium era. They took us to the suite level, which had an area honoring the Twins’ history from when they were the Washington Senators. One of the last things they took us to was the Roof Deck, a seating area way up in left field, and that had some pictures and stats about the Twins players with retired numbers. The very last part of the tour was when we went into the visitor’s clubhouse (surprisingly smaller than those that I have seen), and into the dugout, which did not have big enough seats. The tour was a very thorough one and took almost two hours, and we got to spend a lot of time walking the tiny concourses that are always congested, and reminded me of the Rangers’ right field concourse.

That was the end of our trip, and I really enjoyed it. The flight home went very smoothly, just like the whole trip.

I would like to thank my dad for taking me on this trip every year, and taking me to do so many things. He is awesome.

Come back next week for my July-August Awards.

Deadline Trades

This week I’m going to get caught up on analyzing the Rangers’ trade deadlines deals. I’m late doing this because I was out of town last week on a baseball trip with my dad to Minnesota and Toronto. I was going to recap that trip this week but will wait until next week so that I can analyze the trades.

On July 30th, the Texas Rangers acquired 1B/3B Jorge Cantu from the Florida Marlins in exchange for RHP Omar Poveda and RHP Evan Reed.

Evaluation: Cantu is a big upgrade over Chris Davis, and even with Mitch Moreland getting plenty of playing time at first, Cantu is still playing enough to make a difference. For the season, he is hitting .263 in 388 at-bats, and has 10 home runs and 54 RBIs. He has exactly 100 career home runs. He is having a solid year, not great, not bad, but last year was one of the best years of his career, as he had his highest batting average (.289), his third most home runs (16), and his second most RBIs (100). He is okay defensively at first base, with 8 errors in 145 career starts at the position, and has never had a fielding percentage below .990 in any season at first. He is not going to steal many bases, with only 11 in his 7-year career, and 0 this year, and he is not going to hit too many home runs, but will hit a respectable amount, as his normal is around 15-25 home runs in a season. What he will do a lot of, though, is hitting doubles, with 41 in 2008 and 42 in 2009, and while he won’t hit that many this year (25 so far), he will get up into the 30s in that category, most likely. This will be his fourth major league team to play on in just his seventh year, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the Cincinnati Reds, the Florida Marlins, and now the Texas Rangers.

Omar Poveda was ranked the 23rd prospect in the Rangers organization by Jamey Newberg in this year’s Bound Edition, and is a pretty good prospect despite his minor league numbers. In his five minor league seasons, his ERAs have been 5.71 (2005), 4.78 (2006), 3.22 (2007), 4.47 (2008), and 4.10 (2009). He hasn’t pitched this year due to Tommy John surgery.

Evan Reed was ranked 38th by Jamey this year, and, other than 2008, his stats have been incredible throughout his minor league career. He had a 1.91 ERA in 2007, a 2.96 ERA in 2009, and has a 1.69 ERA this year. Right now he is on the 7-day disabled list with a strained right elbow.

Grade: B, Cantu will be a good addition, not a great one, and we gave up two solid prospects for him. Poveda and Reed both have the potential to be good major leaguers, but Cantu should help us enough to make it a B.

On July 31st, the Texas Rangers acquired 2B Cristian Guzman from the Washington Nationals in exchange for RHP Ryan Tatusko and RHP Tanner Roark.

Evaluation: Cristian Guzman is a definite upgrade over Andres Blanco for the Rangers utility spot, and definitely better suited to fill in for Ian while he’s on the DL. So far this year he is hitting .272. He has good speed, and although he won’t steal many bases anymore, he is still speedy enough to go first-to-third and take an extra base. He is not very good defensively, as he has a career .971 fielding percentage, which is very, very low. He is a two-time All-Star (2001, 2008), but this is the last year of his contract, so he will be a free agent in the offseason. Andres Blanco is hitting just .230 this year, so Guzman should be a big help at the utility spot.

Ryan Tatusko, who just did an interview with me in my last post, is a great guy and I’m really sorry to see him go. He was always very nice to me, and he also did a great job doing the Backfield Diaries for the Newberg Report. He was ranked as the Rangers’ #72 prospect by Jamey, but that was before this season started, and he has had a great year. He was a Texas League All-Star, and he definitely deserved it. He has a 9-2 record and a 2.92 ERA in 104.2 innings pitched between the RoughRiders and the Harrisburg Senators.

Tanner Roark was ranked #58, but his ERA has risen for the second straight year, which isn’t good. After an outstanding 2.76 ERA in his first season in 2008, his ERA raised to a still very good 3.02, but then has raised to a mediocre 4.20 this season. He has a 10-5 record this year despite his above-4.00 ERA.

Grade: B+, Cristian will be a very good addition to this team, but Tatusko has had a great year, and has been raised on prospect lists, and Guzman’s defense really isn’t what you want out of a utility infielder. Still, this is a very good trade, just not an A-worthy one.

On July 31st, the Texas Rangers acquired RHP Roman Mendez and 1B Christopher McGuiness from the Boston Red Sox in exchange for C Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

Evaluation: Jarrod Saltalamacchia was one of the Rangers’ biggest prospects in the trade in which he came here, but leaves as one of the Rangers’ biggest disappointments in the trade in which he leaves here. He played in just two major league games this season before going on the DL and then being sent to the minors. He really struggled in Triple-A Oklahoma City, hitting only .244 with 11 home runs and 33 RBIs. Those would be disappointing numbers in the majors, but they are very disappointing numbers in the minors. He has gotten injured with arm problems many times over the past couple of seasons. He has struck out 66 times this year, and walked just 26 times. He has never hit over .270 in his career, hitting .266 between the Braves and Rangers in 2007, hitting .253 in 2008, and then only .233 in 2009, in which he played the most games in his career. So not only has he had bad batting averages, they’ve gotten worse every year, which is not a good sign. He has never even gotten 35 RBIs in a major league season. His defense has never been good, with a fielding percentage consistently well below .990. He has also been terrible at throwing out base runners, and has allowed 139 stolen bases and thrown out just 36. With Oklahoma City this year, he allowed 46 stolen bases in only 54 attempts.

Roman Mendez has not had a very good year, with a 3-5 record and 5.94 ERA in his 15 starts. He has been very wild, walking 30 batters in 53 innings, but has also struck out a lot of hitters, with 61 Ks. But before this season, he had been dominant, with a 2.65 ERA and .222 opponents’ batting average in 2008, and a 1.99 ERA and .184 opponents’ batting average in 2009. He has a fastball that touches 100 MPH at times, and a very good slider.

Christopher McGuiness is hitting .291 this season with 12 home runs and 49 RBIs between Greensville and Bakersfield. He has walked 59 times and struck out 62 times, a very good ratio. He hit .337 in July, while playing in Low-A. His OBP this season was incredible for the Drive, at .416 due to a solid batting average and a boatload of walks.

Grade: A, the Rangers, along with me, had basically given up on Salty, and we get a hard-throwing starter, whose fastball and slider are somewhat like Carlos Marmol, and a solid hitter at a position where the depth has been eroded in the last few weeks.

Overall, I would give Jon Daniels an A+ for this trade deadline, based on how he’s helped this team and put them in a position to win.

Come back next week for a recap of my baseball trip to Minnesota and Toronto.

Ryan Tatusko Interview

This week I did an interview with Rangers pitcher Ryan Tatusko. Ryan is currently pitching with the Frisco RoughRiders and also writes the Backfield Diaries for the Newberg Report. Ryan is one of the nicest and most fan-friendly players in the Rangers’ organization (which is really saying something) and I would like to thank him for giving me so much of his time and providing such great answers.

Me: Can you please give three major differences you’ve experienced between starting and relieving and why?

Ryan: The three biggest differences that I have found between starting and relieving are that when you start you are able to get yourself into a certain routine. I am able to adjust more when I am in the rotation. I know that when I pitch, I’ve got to get my long distance, flush run in the next day, followed by some long sprints on the 2nd day, with them decreasing in length as the days lead to my next start. I’m also able to adjust the two lifts I need to get in. If I am feeling particularly sore after the start then I can lift the next day. When you are a reliever, you aren’t able to plan what you do between appearances, you just have to try and guess and sometimes you guess wrong and put more strain on your body. The 2nd difference I have found is that when you are relieving you have to be ready to go at all times, you don’t think when things are going to go downhill and you might get a call to come into the game, so I think mentally it can be more taxing knowing that you could be put into the game at any time. The 3rd biggest difference I have found is that starting obviously is more of an endurance game than relieving is. When you start a game, it is the pitcher’s goal to go as long as he can while still giving 100% effort on each pitch, You aren’t able to go out and start immediately throwing as hard as you can on the mound. You have to be able to pick and choose your spots to rear back and get a little extra on your fastball. If you go out and try to just throw it with everything you’ve got on every pitch, then you are going to wear yourself out right away.

Me: What has been the key to your limiting the home runs this year with just 2, when each of the past two years you have given up 9?

Ryan: During the off-season I really did some searching for something in my mechanics. Last year I always felt off when I was on the mound and was never able to figure out what was creating that. So during the off-season I put myself on video right away, and I quickly caught some mechanical flaws that I had. I really focused on correcting these flaws during the off-season and I really think it’s helped me keep the ball in the lower ½ of the zone better and I have been getting a lot more groundouts this year and keeping the ball in the park.

Me: Why have you been so successful pitching out of jams this year, since you have the highest WHIP of your career but still have your lowest ERA?

Ryan: I think I am bearing down in pressure situations better this year. Instead of trying to “limit the damage”, I try and prevent the damages, and although sometimes that can get a pitcher into trouble in situations, I have really found that it helps me bear down more and pitch more aggressively, which has helped me immensely this year. I really attribute the change in mentality to being able to get out of tough situations, and I believe that once you prove to yourself that you are able to do it and you do it a few times, then you gain much more confidence in yourself and it becomes 2nd hat to you.

Me: Is there a definite reason that you have pitched so much better at home, 2.48 ERA, than on the road, 4.19 ERA?

Ryan: You know, I think it’s just “one of those things”. I feel like I’ve had some great outings. I can look back and see some positive outing in Corpus, San Antonio, and, looking back, I can see my worst outing of the year in Midland, so I think it’s just one of those things. There is no doubt that you feel more comfortable at home, with all the fans behind you but there is also a different adrenaline rush on the road when you are trying to shut down a team in their home ballpark.

Me: Did you notice a difference between single-A and double-A hitters and, if so, what is it?

Ryan: I have noticed a HUGE difference in the hitters. For one, I have found that they are much more patient than Single-A hitters. Double-A hitters have a plan when they get to the plate and they will not chase very many balls out of the zone to deviate from that plan. Double-A hitters are looking for a pitch that they can handle, and just because you are throwing well that night it doesn’t mean that they start looking for different things. I have also noticed between my own teammates that the hitters talk more. They talk about what the pitcher is throwing them, where he is throwing it, and what difference they can make in their next at-bat to have success. To me this means that the other team is doing this as well, and thus I cannot keep with the same pitch sequence. I’ve got to be able to adapt too. The hitters here don’t miss a lot of pitches either. Meaning that when they get the pitch they were looking for in their at bat, they jump on it and drive it somewhere. I’ve seen things snowball very quickly in Double-A, and the pitchers are making good pitches. It’s just the hitters have also stepped up their game as well.

Me: What do you think has been your best professional game and why?

Ryan: I think my best professional game was my near no-hitter. I know that seems like the obvious response, but for the entire game I felt like I was in control. My defense did make incredible plays for me that night in Modesto but I had an idea for every batter and it seemed that catcher Jose Felix and I were on the same page all night and I didn’t have to shake him off very many times. The nights you are thinking right along with your catcher are great because you are able to take your mind off the mental part and just concentrate on the location of the pitches. The night in Modesto will always have a special place to me in my mind, not only was it the furthest I have ever taken a no-hitter but it was my first professional complete game and my first complete game shut-out.

Me: What were you feeling during the 9th inning of your near no-hitter last year?

Ryan: Pressure…….lots and lots of pressure on myself. I had full knowledge of what was going on, and I wanted it worse than anyone in that stadium. Honestly the nerves didn’t set in until I got the first out of the 9th inning. When the base hit was made, I wasn’t sad. No-hitters are always a figment to the pitcher’s imagination until they actually happen, so for me it wasn’t like I lost something. I still had the shutout to protect nonetheless and a 2-0 lead. I knew that the next hitter was even more important because he was the tying run and things could have gone from excellent to horrible very fast. Luckily I didn’t get hurt.

Me: Can you describe what the All-Star experience was like this year?

Ryan: This being my first all-star game, it was incredible. Being able to be a part of the festivities was so much fun. Even though it was a laid-back environment, the teams were still very competitive. You could tell that each side wanted to win the game. I would be lying to you if I didn’t say I was nervous being on the mound in the game. Everyone out there was there to prove why they got nominated as an all-star. But the game was extremely fun and entertaining, and it was nice to mingle and talk with guys from the opposite team because when you see them during the season, they are seen as the enemy because they have a different logo, so to be able to talk and make friends with those guys was a great time. The weekend did seem to go by extremely fast though.

Me: Were you excited to be in the All-Star game or would you rather have had the time off?

Ryan: I was more excited to be in the all-star game. Would the time off have been nice? Yes, it would have but you don’t know how many all-star games you will be able to experience, so I really tried to enjoy my time there and take it all in as best as I could.

Me: Who are your three favorite teammates since you joined the Rangers organization and why?

Ryan: My three favorite teammates are former teammate Blake Beavan, Brennan Garr, and Marcus Lemon.

Me: What inspired you to do the Backfield Diaries?

Ryan: The backfield diaries were actually spawned because I was working a 4am-11am shift at a local department store and I got to talking with some of my older co-workers and they asked what I did, citing that I was too young for the job I was doing and I told them that I was a baseball player in the Texas Rangers organization. They didn’t believe me, saying that I wouldn’t be working an off-season job if I were a professional athlete and it hit me right then and there that not many people know about the lives of minor league baseball players and hence the diaries were born.

Me: What’s been the best experience that’s come out of doing the Backfield Diaries?

Ryan: One of the best experiences I have gotten out of this was that I got to exchange a few emails with Nolan Ryan’s wife where she told me I brought her back to when she was with Nolan in the minors. I have also been re-published by the Dallas Morning News and Newsweek which was also very cool.

Me: What kind of feedback have you gotten from doing the Diaries?

Ryan: I always encourage the readers to email me with any questions, comments and concerns that they have. I thought that maybe I would have a few bad responses here and there, but I can honestly say it’s been 100% positive and I am so grateful for that. This is something I truly love doing and I am glad that it has had such a positive response.

Me: Can you please rate each of the ballparks in the Rangers organization that you’ve played in from 1 to 10 (10 being the best) and explain your ratings?

Ryan:
Spokane – 7 – Spokane used to be a AAA ballpark for the Dodgers and so the crowd and the support that the community shows us is amazing, The ballpark is 2nd to none in the Northwest league, and being in short-season ball it’s a great way to start off your professional career.

Clinton (low-A) – 6 – I really enjoyed the nostalgic feeling of the ballpark, and even though we played in a very small town in Iowa, the fans were very passionate about us and the baseball, so it always made it fun to play at home.

Bakersfield (High-A) – No comment (laughs) – AHHH “The Bake”. It has almost become a rite of passage to go there in order to fully appreciate Frisco. It’s true what they say; it is very hard to play there. The conditions aren’t the greatest there, you only have a handful of true, diehard faithful fans at the game and the heat is immense. But you learn to actually play the game there. Meaning the ball flies in the Cal League, so not only do you learn to play in adverse conditions but you also learn to pitch down in the zone and it can only help you.

Frisco – 9 – The only reason I give it a 9 is because I believe Yankee Stadium is a 10 and I don’t think any stadium compares to it. Frisco is the most amazing field I have ever been on. From the surface, to the incredible fans, the town of Frisco, TX and everything in between. The way that everyone treats us, it’s easy to get lost in it and think you’re in the big leagues. Everything about Frisco is amazing.

Me: What is the toughest thing about minor league life and why?

Ryan: The toughest thing about minor league life is the traveling. You are gone from mid-to-late February to mid-to-late September with no break. You are constantly living out of a suitcase; you might have 4 games at home, 8 on the road and 4 at home. Most of our off days are spent on a greyhound type of bus traveling to the next city to play in. You barely get to unpack your suitcase before you’ve got to pack it back up again. But honestly I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.

Me: Who are the three toughest hitters you’ve faced and why?

Ryan: Well to make it easy, for me it’s been the entire Midland lineup! They always seem to have a good idea with me, and even when they make outs, they are hard outs. I know I have to be on my A+ game with them and make sure I am on pinpoint when I face them. My two worst outings of the year have come against them.

Me: What was your favorite team growing up?

Ryan: Being from Indiana, we do not have our own professional team, so I was a Cubs fan. I still go over to family members’ house and they always have the Cubs game on.

Me: What sports did you play growing up and which were you best at?

Ryan: I played basketball and baseball as a kid, and I always felt like I was better at baseball. I would always ask my dad to play catch with me and I made a decision at an early age to give up basketball to play baseball. My parents never pressured me. It was just something I wanted to do.

Me: What is the worst injury you’ve had to deal with?

Ryan: The worst injury I have ever had was having Tommy John surgery when I was 17. I had to miss the postseason my senior year of high school, and I also missed my true freshman year of college while rehabbing. It was more of a mental rehab than a physical one, but it’s something I’m grateful I had to go through because I attribute a lot of my mental strength on the mound to getting through that injury.

Me: What are your hobbies?

Ryan: When I have free time I love listening to music. I have such a wide taste in music. I love everything from 80/90s rock to hip/hop and everything in between. I also try and read a little bit on the bus trips. I have a very extensive movie collection that’s probably over 300 DVDs. I also love to catch up with my family and friends in the off-season. Since I am gone for a majority of the year, things are constantly changing when I’m not at home so I always love to catch up.

Me: What is your best pitch and how was it developed?

Ryan: My fastball is still my best pitch. I think that if you throw 82 or 102, your fastball should be your best pitch. There is a reason that everyone who is in baseball says that the best pitch in baseball is a well-located fastball. My fastball was developed by bullpens and years of mechanical work. I think that you can never do too much work with your mechanics, and better mechanics will give you a better idea of where your fastball is going and fastball command is everything when you’re trying to move up the ladder in this game.

I would like to thank Ryan once again for being so nice and giving me so much of his time.

I wish I could say to come back next week for my recap of tomorrow’s big Newberg Night event but I’m going to have to miss it for the first time. I’m going on a trip with my youth group at church (which I’m also excited about). So come back in two weeks for a summary of my trip to Minneapolis and Toronto to see the new Twins stadium and the Blue Jays.

Cliff Lee Acquired

Last week I took a trip to Myrtle Beach with my dad, mom, sister, grandma, and granddad. We go there every year and this year was a lot of fun. We went to our annual Myrtle Beach Pelicans game (High-A team in the Carolina League), who are owned by Rangers owner-to-be Chuck Greenberg. My little sister went to the game with us this year because they were doing a Webkinz giveaway promotion. Also, every year when we go to Myrtle Beach, my dad, granddad and I do a putt-putt tournament for the entire week, doing a different course every day. They have the best putt-putt anywhere at Myrtle Beach and we went to a different course every day, for a total of 15 rounds of putt-putt. But the best part is the fact that I won for the third year in a row. Another great part of the trip was when we got the news that Cliff Lee was a Ranger, and I will analyze that trade for my blog this week.

On July 9th, the Texas Rangers acquired SP Cliff Lee and RP Mark Lowe for 1B Justin Smoak, SP Blake Beavan, RP Josh Lueke, and 2B Matthew Lawson.

Cliff Lee: Cliff is obviously a great pitcher, the Rangers’ no-doubt-about-it ace, which is something that they didn’t have before the trade. Cliff is 8-4 with a 2.59 ERA, 97 strikeouts, and only 7 walks in 121.2 innings pitched (after his two starts as a Ranger). He is third in the American League in ERA, and that has been raised since the trade. His 97 strikeouts are 14th in the AL, and he was injured through almost all of April. His seven walks are incredible, only 0.52 walks per nine innings which is the best in baseball by 0.64, so that’s not even close. He has 13.86 strikeouts per walk, which is 7.12 better than anyone else in all of baseball. He is very efficient with his pitches, and leads baseball in that category, too, with 13.35 pitches an inning on average. He is a real workhorse, as he is 13th in innings pitched among American League pitchers, and leads the American League in complete games. He is a Cy Young candidate, and an All-Star. Not only that, but in the playoffs last year, he was fantastic, and that is about as big an addition as you can possibly make.

Mark Lowe: Mark is injured, and will most likely miss the rest of the season, but will be back by next year. He is a very good relief pitcher when healthy, despite a 5.37 ERA in 2008, his first season with a respectable amount of innings. In 2009, however, he had a 3.26 ERA in 80 innings, striking out 69, and in his 10.1 innings this year, he had a 3.48 ERA. After trading away Chris Ray to the Giants in exchange for Bengie Molina, when Lowe gets back next year, he could fill that hole in the bullpen, and could be a big piece in a pennant run.

Mariners Players Received: Justin Smoak had really struggled as a Ranger this season since being called up, with a .209 Ranger batting average, 8 home runs, and 34 RBIs. He is a major prospect, rated number 2 in the system at the beginning of the season, and he did well in the minors before getting called up, hitting .300 in 50 at-bats. He has also done well as a Mariner since the trade, hitting .316 with 2 home runs in five games. Blake Beavan is also a very good prospect, and had a great year in Frisco, with a 10-5 record and a 2.78 ERA, earning him an All-Star bid. His only start in West Tennessee with the Diamond Jaxx did not go well, as he allowed 5 runs in 4 innings. Josh Lueke has only 39.2 innings this year, but has a 2.04 ERA, including a 0.46 ERA in Hickory. He pitched only 7.2 innings last year, all with Bakersfield, and in 2008 he struggled with a 4.67 ERA, despite a 3.11 ERA in his first year of professional ball in 2007. Matt Lawson started off great for Frisco this year, but then cooled off big-time to lower his batting average to .277 by the time he was traded, and has now raised it to .282. In his four minor league seasons, only once has his batting average been below .280, but that year’s batting average was .251.

Evaluation: I really like this trade. There is a good chance that the Rangers would have made it to the playoffs before this trade, but if they had, they wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere once they made it. They would be just about the only playoff team without an ace that you can count on to get a win every time he pitches, and it is almost impossible to win in the playoffs without that. But with Cliff Lee, they have an ace, and one who does his best pitching in the playoffs. Last year he went 4-0 with a 1.56 ERA in the postseason for the Philadelphia Phillies. Also, even if the Rangers don’t re-sign Lee, which they probably won’t, they still get a very solid relief pitcher in Mark Lowe. Even though Justin Smoak and Blake Beavan are both very good prospects, the other two people the Rangers sent to the M’s are not. I would have thought that the price for Cliff Lee would be much higher than what we gave up.
Grade: A+, this trade is amazing

Come back next week for my July awards.

All-Star Teams and Molina Acquired

This week I will give my All-Star Teams and analyze the recent Rangers trade to acquire Bengie Molina. The actual All-Star teams get announced tomorrow at 11:00 AM on TBS, and I can’t wait to see what Rangers there are.

On Thursday, the Texas Rangers traded RHP Chris Ray and RHP Michael Main to the San Francisco Giants for C Bengie Molina.

I am not a big fan of this trade. Bengie is definitely an improvement at catcher defensively, and somewhat offensively, but he hasn’t been all that great with the stick this year, as he was hitting just .257 with 3 home runs and 17 RBIs before the trade. But the repercussions in the future could be huge. Chris Ray was very good in the 7th inning for us this year, and we will really miss him, but we could miss him even more in the future. Chris was a dominant closer for the Orioles before he got injured a few years ago, and could be again. With him gone, that leaves us with no reliable closing options if we decided to make both Neftali Feliz and Tanner Scheppers starters, which really handcuffs us from putting both of them in the rotation, which is what I would want to do. Michael Main could also be a big loss in the future, as he is a first-rounder, and, in my opinion, will be a very solid middle-of-the-rotation guy in the future, and we basically just gave him up so that the Giants would pay the remaining $2 million dollars of Molina’s contract. I would much rather have Main than two million dollars. This is an example of the bad situation Daniels has been put in by the Rangers’ ownership situation. If Greenberg owned the Rangers already, I think Main would still be with the team.
Grade: B-, the gain takes away from the loss just enough to keep it from being a C

NL: Stats as of July 2nd

Starters:
C: Miguel Olivo, COL (.312 AVG 1st, 11 HR t-1st, 39 RBI 1st) – Miguel is either first or tied for first in each of the three major hitting categories among National League catchers, so for me, this is a no-brainer.

1B: Joey Votto, CIN (.314 AVG 1st, 18 HR t-2nd, 55 RBI t-3rd) – Joey is in the top three among first basemen in the NL and is a serious MVP candidate. His batting average is the best, and his power numbers are incredible.

DH: Albert Pujols, STL (.309 AVG 2nd, 19 HR 1st, 58 RBI 1st) – Albert is no worse than second among NL first basemen in batting average (.309), home runs (19), or RBIs (58), which is amazing, so I have him starting as my National League DH.

2B: Martin Prado, ATL (.333 AVG 1st, 7 HR 6th, 34 RBI 6th) – Martin has gotten a hit in one out of every three at-bats this year, and that is something that no other NL 2B can even come close to saying, as Brandon Phillips is 2nd, and is .025 points below that.

SS: Hanley Ramirez, FLA (.296 AVG t-3rd, 12 HR t-1st, 51 RBI 1st) – Hanley is third at the shortstop position in the National League with an average just below .300, but leads that category in both major power numbers, home runs and RBIs.

3B: Scott Rolen, CIN (.302 AVG 4th, 17 HR 2nd, 54 RBI 2nd) – Scott isn’t first in any of the three major categories among NL 2B, but is solid in all three. He his hitting over .300, with incredible power numbers.

OF: Ryan Braun, MIL (.295 AVG 10th, 11 HR t-12th, 49 RBI 4th) - Ryan’s batting average isn’t all that great, but his power numbers are, with 11 HR and 49 RBIs.

OF: Carlos Gonzalez, COL (.299 AVG 6th, 13 HR t-6th, 48 RBI 5th) – Carlos is only one point away from hitting .300, is on pace to hit close to 30 home runs and have 100 RBIs over the course of the season, and is in the top six among NL outfielders in all three of those categories.

OF: Corey Hart, MIL (.281 AVG 16th, 18 HR 1st, 60 RBI 1st) – Corey’s batting average is just mediocre, but his power numbers make up for that, as he leads NL outfielders in home runs with 18, and RBIs with 60.

SP: Ubaldo Jimenez, COL (14-1, 1.83 ERA, 102 K) – Ubaldo is leading all of baseball in wins, is tied for the major league lead in ERA, and has over 100 strikeouts. That’s a pretty obvious choice, even with Josh Johnson pitching so well of late.

Reserves:

C: Ronny Paulino, FLA (.306 AVG 2nd, 3 HR t-11th, 28 RBI t-5th)
Ramon Hernandez, CIN (.292 AVG 4th, 3 HR t-11th, 19 RBI t-10th)

1B: Adrian Gonzalez, SD (.297 AVG 4th, 16 HR 5th, 51 RBI 7th)
Ryan Howard, PHI (.294 AVG 5th, 15 HR 6th, 55 RBI t-3rd)

2B: Brandon Phillips, CIN (.308 AVG 2nd, 9 HR 5th, 25 RBI 8th, 60 R 1st in NL, 10 SB 2nd)
Rickie Weeks, MIL (.273 AVG 8th, 13 HR t-2nd, 47 RBI 1st)

SS: Rafael Furcal, LAD (.333 AVG 1st, 3 HR t-11th, 25 RBI 9th)
Troy Tulowitzki, COL (.306 AVG 2nd, 9 HR 3rd, 34 RBI 3rd)

3B: David Wright, NYM (.307 AVG 2nd, 14 HR 3rd, 63 RBI 1st)
Ryan Zimmerman, WAS (.283 AVG 6th, 13 HR t-4th, 40 RBI 6th)
Casey McGehee, MIL (.276 AVG 7th, 13 HR t-4th, 51 RBI 3rd)

OF: Marlon Byrd, CHC (.306 AVG 3rd, 9 HR t-22nd, 35 RBI t-28th)
Matt Holliday, STL (.302 AVG t-4th, 11 HR t-12th, 38 RBI t-20th)
Chris Young, ARI (.261 AVG t-31st, 14 HR t-3rd, 52 RBI t-2nd)
Jay Bruce, CIN (.283 AVG t-13th, 10 HR t-18th, 36 RBI t-23rd)
Andre Ethier, LAD (.312 AVG 2nd, 12 HR t-10th, 47 RBI t-6th)

SP: Josh Johnson, FLA (8-3, 1.83 ERA, 107 K)
Adam Wainwright, STL (11-5, 2.34 ERA, 114 K)
Jaime Garcia, STL (7-4, 2.27 ERA, 70 K)
Tim Hudson, ATL (8-3, 2.37 ERA, 51 K)
Chris Carpenter, STL (9-1, 2.90 ERA, 100 K)
Yovani Gallardo, MIL (8-3, 2.56 ERA, 120 K)

RP: Matt Capps, WAS (22 SV, 3.28 ERA, 31 K)
Matt Lindstrom, HOU (19 SV, 2.97 ERA, 28 K)
Heath Bell, SD (21 SV, 1.87 ERA, 44 K)
Brian Wilson, SF (21 SV, 2.18 ERA, 45 K)
Evan Meek, PIT (0.98 ERA, 46 IP, 42 K)
Arthur Rhodes, CIN (1.09 ERA, 33 IP, 32 K)

Players per Team:
Cincinnati Reds – 6
St. Louis Cardinals – 5
Milwaukee Brewers – 5
Colorado Rockies – 4
Florida Marlins – 3
Los Angeles Dodgers – 2
San Diego Padres – 2
Atlanta Braves – 2
Washington Nationals – 2
Arizona Diamondbacks – 1
San Francisco Giants – 1
Houston Astros – 1
Pittsburgh Pirates – 1
Chicago Cubs – 1
New York Mets – 1
Philadelphia Phillies – 1

AL: Stats as of July 3rd

Starters:
C: Joe Mauer, MIN (.297 AVG 1st, 3 HR t-11th, 34 RBI t-4th) – Joe hasn’t hit for the kind of power that he did last year, but the catching position hasn’t been that good in the AL this year, and Joe is still hitting almost .300.

1B: Miguel Cabrera, DET (.337 AVG 2nd, 20 HR t-1st, 68 RBI 1st) – Miguel Cabrera leads American League first basemen in both home runs and RBIs, and also has a .337 average, which is second in that group.

2B: Robinson Cano, NYY (.347 AVG 1st, 16 HR 1st, 54 RBI 1st) – Robinson Cano is the obvious choice to be the starter for this position, since he leads AL 2B in all three major categories.

SS: Elvis Andrus, TEX (.292 AVG 1st, 0 HR t-15th, 24 RBI 8th, 22 SB 1st) – Elvis hasn’t hit any home runs this year, but he still has a good number of RBIs for a lead-off man, and leads AL SS in both batting average and stolen bases by a good amount.

3B: Adrian Beltre, BOS (.346 AVG 1st, 12 HR t-1st, 53 RBI 3rd) – Adrian is first by .032 points in batting average for American League third basemen, is tied for first in that group in home runs, and is third in RBIs.

DH: Vladimir Guerrero, TEX (.334 AVG 1st, 18 HR 1st, 70 RBI 1st) – Vladimir leads all DHs in all three major categories, and leads all of baseball in RBIs. This one isn’t even close.

OF: Josh Hamilton, TEX (.340 AVG t-1st, 19 HR t-2nd, 59 RBI 1st) – Josh is in the top two among AL outfielders in batting average (.340), home runs (19), and RBIs (59).

OF: Brandon Boesch, DET (.340 AVG t-1st, 12 HR t-9th, 46 RBI 9th) – The AL Rookie of the Year choice is going to be very hard this year, since there should be two rookie All-Stars, with Boesch and Neftali Feliz.

OF: Alex Rios, CWS (.312 AVG 7th, 13 HR t-4th, 44 RBI t-10th) – Alex has been solid all-around this year, with a batting average well over .300, and power numbers well above average.

SP: David Price, TB (11-4, 2.42 ERA, 90 K) – David leads the American League in wins with 11, in ERA at 2.42, and has 90 strikeouts, which isn’t too shabby. He’s had a great year.

Reserves:

C: Victor Martinez, BOS (.289 AVG 2nd, 9 HR t-4th, 38 RBI 2nd) (can’t play due to injury)
John Buck, TOR (.266 AVG 5th, 13 HR 2nd, 40 RBI 1st)

1B: Justin Morneau, MIN (.343 AVG 1st, 16 HR t-3rd, 52 RBI 1st)
Paul Konerko, CWS (.294 AVG 5th, 20 HR t-1st, 57 RBI 2nd)
Billy Butler, KC (.320 AVG 3rd, 8 HR t-9th, 42 RBI 7th)

2B: Dustin Pedroia, BOS (.292 AVG 4th, 12 HR 3rd, 41 RBI 4th) (can’t play due to injury)
Ian Kinsler, TEX (.301 AVG 3rd, 3 HR t-9th, 26 RBI 7th)
Mike Aviles, KC (.326 AVG 2nd, 2 HR t-11th, 13 RBI 16th) (D. Pedroia injury replacement)

SS: Derek Jeter, NYY (.282 AVG 3rd, 8 HR 2nd, 39 RBI 2nd)
Alex Gonzalez, TOR (.263 AVG 8th, 14 HR 1st, 41 RBI 1st)

3B: Michael Young, TEX (.314 AVG 2nd, 11 HR 4th, 51 RBI 4th)
Evan Longoria, TB (.292 AVG 3rd, 12 HR t-1st, 55 RBI 2nd)
Alex Rodriguez (.278 AVG 5th, 12 HR t-1st, 57 RBI 1st) (V. Martinez injury replacement)

DH: Jose Guillen, KC (.276 AVG 2nd, 14 HR 3rd, 50 RBI 3rd)

OF: Magglio Ordonez, DET (.313 AVG 6th, 10 HR t-11th, 49 RBI t-5th)
Shin-Soo Choo, CLE (.286 AVG 18th, 13 HR t-4th, 43 RBI 12th)
David DeJesus, KC (.327 AVG 4th, 5 HR t-29th, 35 RBI t-20th)
Nick Markakis, BAL (.303 AVG t-10th, 4 HR t-33rd, 26 RBI t-30th)

SP: Clay Buchholz, BOS (10-4, 2.45 ERA, 64 K)
Cliff Lee, SEA (7-3, 2.45 ERA, 78 K)
Andy Pettite, NYY (9-2, 2.72 ERA, 74 K)
Trevor Cahill, OAK (8-2, 2.74 ERA, 56 K)
Jered Weaver, LAA (8-3, 2.82 ERA, 124 K)
Jon Lester, BOS (9-3, 2.86 ERA, 111 K)

RP: Joakim Soria, KC (21 SV, 2.35 ERA, 37 K)
Neftali Feliz, TEX (21 SV, 3.06 ERA, 38 K)
Rafael Soriano, TB (19 SV, 1.57 ERA, 26 K)
Jon Rauch, MIN (18 SV, 2.53 ERA, 23 K)
Mariano Rivera, NYY (18 SV, 0.86 ERA, 31 K)
Jose Valverde, DET (18 SV, 0.53 ERA, 32 K)

Players per Team:
Texas Rangers – 6
Kansas City Royals – 5
New York Yankees – 5
Detroit Tigers – 4
Boston Red Sox – 3
Minnesota Twins – 3
Tampa Bay Rays – 3
Toronto Blue Jays – 2
Chicago White Sox – 2
Baltimore Orioles – 1
Cleveland Indians – 1
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim – 1
Oakland Athletics – 1
Seattle Mariners – 1

I’ll be taking next week off. Come back in two weeks.

June Awards

This week I will post my June Awards. The All-Star post will be moved to next week, since my computer crashed, and that will work out well, since the All-Star teams will be announced next weekend.

Rangers:

MVP: Josh Hamilton, TEX (.348 AVG, 17 HR, 54 RBI) – Josh leads the team in both home runs and batting average, and is second in RBIs. He really has carried the team on his shoulders in the month of June.
Runner-up: Vladimir Guerrero, TEX (.326 AVG, 15 HR, 60 RBI)

Cy Young: Colby Lewis, TEX (7-5, 3.28 ERA, 94 K) – Colby has been the best Rangers starter by far this year, as he leads the team in both wins and strikeouts, while he leads the rotation in ERA. He has been amazing.
Runner-up: CJ Wilson, TEX (6-3, 3.35 ERA, 69 K)

Rookie of the Year: Neftali Feliz, TEX (20 SV, 2.78 ERA, 37 K) – Neftali leads the American League in saves as a rookie, and the Rangers’ second best rookie is hitting .227.
Runner-up: Justin Smoak, TEX (.227 AVG, 8 HR, 34 RBI)

AL:

MVP: Miguel Cabrera, DET (.330 AVG, 20 HR, 63 RBI) – Miguel leads the American League in RBIs with 63, is 6th in batting average at .330, and is tied for 1st in HR with 20.
Runner-up: Josh Hamilton, TEX (.348 AVG, 17 HR, 54 RBI)

Cy Young: David Price, TB (11-3, 2.44 ERA, 84 K) – David has been dominant so far this season for the Rays, and he leads the AL in wins, is second in ERA, and has thrown almost 100 innings.
Runner-up: Clay Buchholz, BOS (10-4, 2.45 ERA, 64 K)

Rookie of the Year: Brandon Boesch, DET (.337 AVG, 11 HR, 40 RBI) – Brandon is hitting well over the century mark at .337, and leads AL rookies in average, home runs, and RBIs.
Runner-up: Neftali Feliz, TEX (20 SV, 2.78 ERA, 37 K)

Manager of the Year: Jim Leyland, DET (39-34, t-2nd place) – Jim has taken a Tigers team that wasn’t expected to do much all the way up to 2nd place in the AL Central, and they are only 1.5 games back of the Twins.
Runner-up: Joe Madden, TB (44-30, 2nd place)

NL:

MVP: Adrian Gonzalez, SD (.313 AVG, 16 HR, 49 RBI) – Adrian is in the top of the NL in batting average (5th), home runs (t-4th), and RBIs (11th), so he’s just had an all-around solid year.
Runner-up: Albert Pujols, STL (.306 AVG, 15 HR, 50 RBI)

Cy Young: Ubaldo Jimenez, COL (13-1, 1.60 ERA, 95 K) – Ubaldo had a bad outing last time on the mound to balloon his ERA to a huge 1.60. But his 13 wins, which lead baseball, make up for his lackluster ERA, and so do his 95 Ks.
Runner-up: Josh Johnson, FLA (8-3, 1.83 ERA, 107 K)

Rookie of the Year: Jaime Garcia, STL (7-3, 1.79 ERA, 70 K) – Jaime has the 2nd lowest ERA in the National League behind Ubaldo Jimenez, and if you’re one of the three best pitchers in the league as a rookie, you should get the Rookie of the Year Award.
Runner-up: Mike Leake, CIN (5-1, 2.92 ERA, 58 K)

Manager of the Year: Bud Black, SD (44-30, 1st place) – Bud has led a Padres team that was supposed to be a last place bottom-feeder at the beginning of the year into a team with the best record in the National League.
Runner-up: Bobby Cox, ATL (44-31, 1st place)

Come back next week for my All-Star teams.

Computer Crash

Our computer completely died today. I had spent hours writing this week's post and was almost done when it happened and lost the whole thing. So I won't be able to do a post this weekend. I was going to post my June All-Star teams, and by the way, there were five Rangers. They were Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, Vladimir Guerrero, Colby Lewis, and Neftali Feliz.

Come back next week for (hopefully) my June awards.

First-Third Recap

This week I will post my recap of the first third of the major league baseball season (all stats as of the morning of June 12th).

Recap:

1st place teams (and keys to 1st place so far):
AL East: Rays 39-22 (22-8 road record)
AL Central: Twins 36-25 (17-9 in division)
AL West: Rangers 33-28 (23-11 home record)
NL East: Braves: 35-27 (24-17 vs. right-handed starting pitchers)
NL Central: Reds 35-27 (22-14 in division)
NL West: Padres 36-25 (13-9 in one-run games) and Dodgers 36-25 (15-6 in one-run games)

Wild Cards (and keys to wild card so far):
AL: Yankees 38-23 (20-7 home record)
NL: Padres 36-25 (see division) and Dodgers 36-25 (see division)

AL East:

The Rays got off to a hot start this year, going 17-7 in the month of April, but have somewhat cooled off since then, going 22-15 in May and June so far. Tampa has had great hitting and pitching so far, with the 3rd most runs in the AL, and the least amount of runs against in the AL.

The Yankees are just one game back, but still own the second best record in all of baseball. They have also gotten contributions from both the hitting and the pitching staff, scoring the 2nd most runs in the AL, and allowing the 3rd fewest.

The Red Sox struggled through April, with an 11-13 record, but have picked it up since then, and are now nine games over .500.

The Blue Jays have hit the most home runs in all of baseball, and have gotten homers from surprising people (Jose Batista has 18, Alex Gonzalez has 13, John Buck has 9, Edwin Encarnacion has 8, and so on). They are just 5.5 games out of first place, and have the same record at home (17-14) as on the road.

The Orioles are in last place, already 22 games out, with a 17-44 record, and a .279 winning percentage. No other team is even 15 games out of first place, no other team has less than 23 wins, and no other team has a winning percentage below .375, so the Orioles are the worst team in baseball by far at this point of the season.

AL Central:

Minnesota has a 4.5 game lead over the Tigers for first place in the AL Central. They have done exactly what you’re supposed to do so far this year, go .500 on the road (15-15), and win two out of three at home (21-10). They have scored the most runs in their division (290), and given up the least (235).

The Tigers are two games over .500, but that is because of what they have done at home, as they are 18-10 in Detroit, but a terrible 13-19 on the road. Detroit has pretty much split even between the Central and the West, going 24-25 against those two divisions, but has played well against Eastern division teams, going 5-2.

Chicago is 27-33, and shouldn’t even be that good, since they have been outscored by 29 runs on the year, and don’t even have a winning record at home (15-18). The Sox are only two games up on Kansas City, who is 26-36 on the year.

The Royals have actually been better on the road (14-18), than at home (12-18). They have been respectable against the Central and the East, just three games under .500 against those two divisions, but are 3-10 against the AL West. They have also had problems against lefties, with a 3-9 record when the opposition’s starter is a southpaw.

At 24-36, the Indians are terrible, being outscored by 50 runs so far, and without a winning record in any of these categories: vs. the East, vs. the Central, vs. the West, home, road, vs. RHP, vs. LHP, or in one-run games. You simply just can’t win like that.

AL West:

The Rangers are in first place, but only lead the Angels by half a game. Despite the Rangers’ 10-17 record on the road this year, Texas is still five games over .500, due to their 23-11 record at home. Part of the reason for that is the fact that the Rangers hit so much better at home, and Vlad signifies that, hitting .381 at home, but only .272 on the road. The Rangers have also been very successful in their own division, with a 13-5 record against Western division teams.

The Angels have made up a lot of ground on the Rangers ever since Kendry Morales went down with an injury. Despite their winning record, the Angels have been outscored by their opponents, and have allowed the 3rd most runs in the American League.

The A’s are only one game over .500, despite being in first place for much of the year. They have been able to withstand the run differential of -12 for the year, by their 11-4 record in one-run games. They have a record of 11-18 on the road.

If there’s one stat to show how bad the Mariners have been this year, it’s this: the Mariners have the same winning percentage as the Pirates. The Mariners are 23-38, 10 games out of the worst division in baseball. Seattle is a horrendous 7-21 against teams in the West, and an awful 8-21 on the road. Those are not great keys to success.

NL East:

The Braves have been able to rebound from their 10-14 record in April, and their last place positioning into the month May, and are now 8 games over .500. The Braves have been terrific at home, going 19-6, which makes the 16-21 road record not so big of a deal.

The Mets have been able to take advantage of the Phillies’ offensive struggles (more like incompetence), and are now in 2nd place, just 1.5 games out of first place. They are 24-10 at home, but really need to pick it up on the road, with just a 9-18 record outside of Citi Field. The Mets also have another thing to celebrate, besides only being 1.5 games back: they only have 7 current injuries (that’s probably an all-time low for them).

The Phillies are in 3rd place, 1 game behind the Mets, which is mostly because they haven’t even scored as many runs as the Nationals. They have been very successful against right-handed pitchers, though, with a 26-19 record against righties.

The Marlins have been a disappointment, but are just 4.5 games back despite their losing record. The Marlins have been shut down against right-handers, going 17-23 in that category, including one perfect game by Roy Halladay.

Washington, at 30-32, is only 5 games behind the Braves, and is in last place. That is a pretty close division. They have been much better at home (18-12) than on the road (12-20). They have been outscored by 18 runs so far this year.

NL Central:

The Reds are up half a game on the Cardinals in the NL Central, mostly due to how solid they are all-around. They are 21-14 at home, 14-13 on the road, have winning records against both righties and lefties, and are 13-11 in one-run games. They have scored the most runs in the National League so far with 313.

At 34-27, the Cardinals are in second place, but if they could improve on the road, they wouldn’t be. Away from Busch Stadium, they have a losing record (15-17). They also need to improve in one-run games, as they are just 10-12 in those situations.

The Cubs are a full 7.5 games out of first place with a 27-34 record, which is only so bad because of intra-divisional games (13-20 vs. the NL Central), and because of righties (17-26 vs. RHP), but neither of those is going away, so they can wait ‘till next year again.

The Brewers are only a game worse than the Cubs, but the pitching has been much worse, as only the Pirates and the Diamondbacks have given up more runs than them in all of baseball, and that’s not very good company. Even though only two NL teams have outscored them this year, over the course of the season so far, the Brewers have given up 45 more runs than they have scored, which can explain their 26-35 record.

The Astros are terrible. They can’t even win at home (14-20), and they don’t make up for that on the road (11-17), they can’t hit righties (19-30), and they have a losing record against lefties, too. Those aren’t even the worst stats. The worst one is the stat that mentions how they’ve been outscored by 81 runs so far.

As bad as the Astros are, the Pirates are even worse. They haven’t even scored 200 runs this year, and everyone else (besides the Astros, Orioles, and Mariners) has scored at least 250. They haven’t even pitched well, giving up the 4th most runs in the National League. They have been outscored by 100 runs. I’m looking forward to them coming to Arlington.

NL West:

The Padres are tied with the Dodgers for the NL West lead at 36-25. Part of the reason they’ve been able to do that is because they have a winning record against all three divisions, both home and away, vs. RHP and LHP, and in one-run games. Their pitching has been spectacular, giving up only 198 runs, best in major league baseball.

The Dodgers have been able to work their way up to a tie with the Padres because of how good they’ve been in their division, and how good they’ve been at home. In NL West play, the Dodgers are 18-5, and at home they are 23-11. They are also very good in close games, with a 15-6 record when the game is decided by one run.

The Giants, although they’ve had the second best pitching in all of baseball, are 2.5 games out of the division lead. They have had problems winning against the teams in their division, which can come back to bite you later in the year, with an 8-14 record against the Dodgers, Padres, Rockies, and Diamondbacks.

The Rockies are 5 games out of first place, and just one game over .500. Their pitching has been fine, and their hitting has been, too, as they are right in the middle of the pack in both runs scored and runs allowed, but you can’t be like that in both categories, because then your record will be just what theirs is, in the middle of the pack.

The Diamondbacks have given up the most runs in major league baseball by far, giving up 363 runs in just 62 games. That is an average of 5.85 runs a game. When your pitching is that bad, it doesn’t matter if you’ve scored the 4th most runs in the NL, which is what the D-Backs are finding out.

The Rangers had the draft this past week, and their two first-rounders were OF Jake Skole and C Kellin Deglan. Jake was drafted out of high school, and Deglan was drafted out of a Canadian secondary school. I am worried that the Rangers drafted them for signability reasons and drafted them too high.

Come back next week for my June All-Stars.